INTRODUCTION

to reduce to their true value the pale copies and false conceptions that ridiculous individuals or ignorant experimenters seek to spread among the crowd. It is now necessary for the spirit of freedom to finally conquer clerical obscurantism in order to reveal without fear the teachings of practical magic the applied side of magical science by adapting them to the science of our era. And let those who know not be frightened by this publication; all this will seem like empty dreams or the reveries of a madman to the mass of hylics those who live only for the material world, and only those who are worthy of mystical adeptship the attainment of spiritual mastery will understand and act. The facts of magic are dangerous, and, following the example of one of the greatest contemporary masters, Eliphas Lévi, we warn the imprudent in advance that they risk madness or death by pursuing these studies in a simple spirit of curiosity. Whoever is afraid of suffering, fears deprivation, or recoils before death will certainly do better to study sports than magic, and the tights of our ballet dancers will be more comfortable spectacles for him than the visions of the astral the subtle, non-physical plane of existence.

There exists, however, an involution of magical experiments for the use of timid people, and we cannot advise those who want to amuse themselves after dinner enough to practice spiritist phenomena séances and mediumistic activities. It is not difficult, and it is very comforting. Then again, it is so far from true magic that one can have no fear of serious accidents, provided one stops in time.

*At the moment of the fall and transformation of the ancient world, the sanctuaries authorized the disclosure of a part of the mysteries; and the School of Alexandria the Neo-Platonic center of learning in Egypt, gnosis direct, experiential knowledge of the divine, and nascent chris-